I love the scrappy mockery of Jesus and Mo. Freedom of speech
includes the freedom to mock any person, any thing, any activity, and
any belief -- and J&M stands up for this unflinchingly Richard Stallman

Author, I don’t know. I just don’t know. But I’ve got a damn good idea, thanks to the shoulders of giants we all stand upon. Thanks for another great strip. Right on with the punch line this time.
Sad to hear the barmaid is not your favourite character. S’funny you know. The barmaid is the only character I like. She speaks for me, and she speaks to idiots. But then I didn’t create her, so maybe that makes the difference.

It’s quite common misconception that “religion brings answers”, while actually all it brings is multitude of questions about itself it cannot answer. Unless you accept infantile rubbish or “it’s a mystery”. But that requires training, preferably in childhood.

“Why” questions remind me when my kids were three years old (and didn’t want to go to bed). You answer, and then there’s another “Why?”, ad infinitum. Just because you can ask a question doesn’t mean that there is a cogent, final answer, unless you’re Aristotle or a faith head.

[…] times (by atheists linked above, as well as Ophelia Benson and Luke Muehlhauser, and in the comic Jesus and Mo) and while I might quibble with a few details of particular sets of answers, I think they do a good […]

There is a (more limited) sense in which “why” questions make naturalistic sense- Tinbgergen’s (1963)- The 4 types of question in biology. We can intellgibly ask:
1) How does it work? (proximate question) e.g. How does the eye focus images?
2) How does it grow? (ontogenic question) e.g. To what extent do we have to learn how to see?
3) How did it evolve? (phylogentic question) e.g. why are our eyes (unlike octpodes’ ones) inside out?
4) Why did it evolve? (adaptive question) e.g. what advantage did colour vision give?

The last answers “why” questions- but not in a way to please the theist.

Gosh, I woulda’ thought the erudite teeming masses would’ve postulated some theorems before now…
1&2 may be forever unanswerable, though an antimatter “spark” to the big bang has been suggested…

As for the “regularity” question, certain organized forms of matter have strength and stability, which help explain their occurrence and persistence.
This holds true at the micro and macro level. Natural arches are left standing when the surrounding material erodes away. They didn’t have to be built. So too, strengths emerge out of disorder through natural processes. It’s not the easiest thing to see with a short lifespan, relative to the time scales involved, but humans have gained a phenomenal understanding of the natural world in mere generations. Onward, ho!

Just finished reading Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow “The Grand Design”. They take us step by step through the evidence pointing to our current understanding. Unfortunately it’s over my head for at least the last few steps, but I trust they make sense to people at their strata of involvement. Amuses me to hear the flapping gums of the Souther Baptists, who believe “The Flintstones” is a documentary. The word from them is that there’s “not a shed of scientific evidence” supporting M-theory. Sigh.

Ok gals- if we are gonna get all metafizzical about it- possible answers:
1) What is the alternative? (I mean what are the people in non-existing universes asking?)
2) Itself
3) The 2nd law of thermodynamics is locally opposed by natural selection in self-replicators (briefly though– it will all end badly)
4) This is WHY we are atheists- the universe looks like exactly like the kind of place that has no god.

@FedupwithR: I reckon they tried to “enlighten” her between frames 3 and 4.
@Daoloth: 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. It only _appears_ to be locally opposed, because of course there are energy flows in and out. I like the saying that an organism is “a local abatement of chaos”. (I’m sure you know all this but perhaps not everyone does.)

@ ST. Sure thing! My attempt at brevity may have implied that I thought something magical was happening. Rest assured that I don’t.
Less briefly, I was loosely reiterating the Schroedinger (1944) point that “It is by avoiding the rapid decay into the inert state that an organism appears so enigmatic” (pp. 69–70).
The universe is full of inert stuff exhibiting little functional self-organisation, rather –moving towards more probable states of maximum disorder (Feynman, Leighton, & Sands, 1963).
The theists kinda sense this, in their fumbly way, which is why they invoke the Magic Sky Daddy to make the hurty confused place in their brain all well again.
They also sense that evolution by natural selection (which solves the organisation problem) makes Magic Sky Daddy redundant. I guess that’s why they then get either:
1) Cross, shouty and explody
2) Mystical, superior and pompous

It is narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: Men will continue to question one another till this is propounded: Allah created all things but who created Allah? He who found himself confronted with such a situation should say: I affirm my faith in Allah.
————————–
Now there are people : Who says “Do not know”.

@Khan: lots of things were said by lots of “prophets”, lots of which didn’t make it into popular culture and are lost in the competition for household-brand prophecies.

Who gives a shit what these people said? Why should we believe them now? And why does the words have to be enforced rote learning with sever punishments for those who dare to question or excuse themselves from the indoctrination club?

Mouthpieces for gods tell us to stone others and fly planes into buildings. Why do so many listen? What the fuck is wrong with you people who believe what you’re told ‘cos you’re told to believe?

Why do you even exist if you can be replaced with a bloody Electric Monk? Or a parrot? You’re a waste of the gifts of humanity bestowed upon you by evolutionary and technological advantages.

I know that 1400 years ago must look as awesome to you as a smithing demonstration does to nerds at a SCA faire, but how about leaving progress to progress and take your stones back to your private idyllic stone age?

I love (not) how things ascribed to opinionated & vocal people over a thousand years ago somehow become reverential due merely to the passage of time & a bunch of fellow ancient scribes saying “yeah!”

It also is a wonderfully useless act to answer the question of “who created god” with “I believe in his existence.” It’s not an answer. It’s a reinforcement of indoctrination. Self-delusion. Pointing out as much leads to angry/violent reactions by the deluded in religion just as it does in abnormal psychiatry.

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